Democrats' New Push for Immigration Reform

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," December 16, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Now, as we've been reporting tonight, congressional Democrats are laying the groundwork for their latest attempt at pushing an amnesty bill through Congress. And with our economy sputtering and unemployment at double digits, the big question is, well, why now?

Well, it appears that liberal special-interest groups hold the answer to that question. Because organizations like the SEIU have been ramping up their efforts to legalize illegal workers right here in the U.S. So could this be a case of the Democrats caving in to pressure from the left-wing element of their party?

Joining us now is someone who has done a great deal of reporting on this. And she is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best seller, "Culture of Corruption." Michelle Malkin is back.

So let me get this. The president has the worst approval rating of a modern president in one year in office. The Congress is at 21 percent. Reid is in the low 30s. Pelosi is in the 20s. And now, they're going to force — you know, Congress after cap-an- tax, a stimulus, and health care, now they're going to force them to go into a controversial issue like illegal immigration and amnesty.

MICHELLE MALKIN, AUTHOR, "CULTURE OF CORRUPTION": Well, the left flank is unhappy with this White House, and they're not going to wait.

Yesterday in the House, Luis Gutierrez, who's an Illinois Democrat from Barack Obama's home state there in Illinois, introduced this bill with the support of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and they basically laid it on the line for this White House and team Obama, and told them, "You'd better do this."

And you mentioned the SEIU. The SEIU is the main backer of this monstrosity. They're calling it the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for American Security and Prosperity.

HANNITY: Yes.

MALKIN: It's about as Orwellian a name as you could get. And the short title ought to just be "Night of the Living Shamnesty." Because it is a return of the same kind of open-borders legislation that we saw attempted when Teddy Kennedy was still alive. And they're relying on the same open-borders lobby to help carry this through.

HANNITY: Do they just want to motivate every conservative so that every — we can take back the House and Senate next year? I mean, it doesn't seem politically — I've got to believe that there is somebody in the Democratic Party that says, "You know what? We've got to stop having these controversial bills and angering the entire country and showing our left-wing, you know, base everything they want. Because we're not going to be in office, come January next year."

MALKIN: Yes. Well, I'm not going to wait and hold my breath for that adult in the Democrat Party to lecture the left-wing flank on this.

And the fact is that this is basically a huge recruitment effort for the SEIU. They have some two million members now. But from the beginning of the year, they've been lobbying for a new illegal alien shamnesty. Because they know that more illegal aliens, more amnesticized, means more Democrat voters.

And there's a parallel effort going on here, Sean, that we have to look at the big picture. Because the Obama administration, of course, is using the census to help reshape the political landscape for the Democrat Party.

They see this as a way of securing a permanent Democrat majority, and that's why you see all of these efforts. You saw it with team Obama, trying to co-opt the census for the White House from the Commerce Department. You're seeing this push now. And they're basically trying to persuade illegal aliens to hold on and stay here: "Look, there's this legislation. You'll be amnesticized. Stay here released until April 2010, when the census state happens."

HANNITY: Do you think this happens? Do you think they pass this?

MALKIN: I don't know if they're going to pass it, but they're certainly going to use it as leverage to try and get these illegal aliens to stay here. Because they know that this is the key to power for them. It's the key to power for SEIU, for the White House, for reapportioning congressional seats.

We saw it in 2000, Sean, where there were, I think, upwards of nine seats that switched hands as a result of these — counting of illegal aliens in the census.

HANNITY: All right. What do you think happens now politically? As we head into the midterm election year, we see, you know, the popularity of a president and Congress at an all-time low. We see an energized conservative base in this country, with the ascendancy, as I'm calling it, of conservatism once again.

You know, so what is the net result of, I think, the Democrats, the president, Harry Reid, and Pelosi, overreaching? What are the consequences? Do they — do they let their fellow Democrats walk the plank for them?

MALKIN: Well, I think one consequence we're already seeing is that the so-called Blue Dog Democrats are falling like flies. You see a lot of the moderate Democrats who are left, and there are few of them to begin with, retiring. They don't even want to fight these battles.

HANNITY: Good point.

MALKIN: With — and with regard to immigration specifically, this is not just something that's going to cause trouble within the Democrat Party. You are going to now see conservatives and independents wanting the Republican Party to walk the walk on immigration.

And look, we can't forget that it was open-borders Republicans who assisted George Bush in trying to get that open-borders legislation through in 2006. And you've got someone like John McCain, who carried water for that. And Lindsey Graham. Where are they going to be on this? We want to know.

HANNITY: Well, it's going to be interesting. And I said this last night, that Republicans that went ahead here, that they have an opportunity to distinguish themselves from the Democratic Party, Michelle. And some of them went along with the earmark spending again over the weekend, when they could be the party of fiscal responsibility. They blew a political opportunity.

And if they do the same thing on this bill, they will again alienate their base and show them they have not learned the lessons of 2006 and 2008. That's what — that's what I think the message will be.

MALKIN: That's exactly right. This is an economic issue, a sovereignty issue, a national security issue, and a moral issue.

HANNITY: All right. Michelle Malkin, thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.

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